It Ain't What You Know (It's How You Know It)

Knowledge is often times misunderstood as the knowledge of things. Hence people think there is such a thing as computer knowledge, and people do not understand that the term itself is an oxymoron. The Greek word was "gnosis." It was preserved in the term gnosticism, as a denominator for a set of philosophical/religious groups which existed among the mixture of religions around the time of Jesus, and in which the idea of gnosis, as an inner knowing, that is quite different in quality from the objective knowing of "things." This type of knowledge is an inner knowing that reflects a connection to our Self, it is the knowledge that is able at some point to recognize the Christ in our brothers, and to recognize Jesus, because we know at an ethereal level that he Is, what we Are in reality, pure spirit. As the proto-orthodoxy of Paul and Peter gained more prominence, gradually numerous forms of gnosticism were dismissed by these early would-be Christians as heresy, and ultimately their literature was to be excluded from the New Testament. As so often it became a matter of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

In the Thomas material we find Jesus using this word gnosis, knowledge in this original sense, starting in Logion 3, as knowing yourself, Logion 5, as knowing what is "in front of your face." This knowing is different than knowing the price of beans, it is an inner knowing, understanding. In the later gnostic tradition this usage becomes distorted again sometimes as if after all it is a something to be known, even in the sense of tradition. That is not the meaning it has in the Thomas Gospel, and clearly Jesus was not a gnostic. Conversely however some of the gnostics quite evidently did a better job of retaining some of the teachings of Jesus, than the so-called Christian orthodoxy which was to become the church later. An example of that might be the Roman teacher Valentinus, whose 2nd century Gospel of Truth is quite remarkable, and reflective of the original spirit of Jesus's teachings. But Jesus was neither a Christian, nor a Gnostic, that was not the point of his life and his resurrection. Jesus is who we know we would be as and when we do remember that we are the Son of God, so he is the living example of who we could be and should be. Hence he refers to himself sometimes as "the living one," since we have lost this consciousness, this inner knowing of who we really are in truth, and he is there to remind us and to wake us up from our stupor. Logion 28 reflects that sort of view of the human condition. 

Something within us knows however, and Logion 108 powerfully gives expression to our ability to fully learn who he is and thus to become like him. Our awareness is capable of shifting from our identification with the ego-self, to identification with our true Self, and on this path he is the teacher. This change of mind is the metanoia the Course talks about, and it is NOT a conversion of faith, or repentance, it is a total shift of thought-system, to a completely different frame of reference, that of the Holy Spirit. In A Course in Miracles he presents himself as an older brother, which implies a sense of recognition and familiarity. The difference between him and us is thus merely in the fact that he knows the way home and we don't so we'd be well advised to listen to him more. It is that inner sense of recognition of authenticity and of our own essence, which gives us the knowing, the certainty to proceed, while our ego still yanks us in every other direction, but meanwhile cannot offer us that quiet, inner calm of knowing, just knowing. If you truly know, you don't doubt, you don't have to defend your position to anyone, for the truth is never harmed by anything that seeks to contradict it. It just is. This is why inner peace is such a huge tip off of living in truth. There is nothing to defend, just like Jesus had no need of defend himself.

This is the closest way I could describe the feeling, which I've known in various ways in my own life, when I've recognized that voice, sometimes through others, sometimes within myself. One of the moments that stands out for me was a time when I was in my early twenties, and contemplating learning Aramaic and Coptic, simply because I was then very interested in the Thomas Gospel, as well as in Aramaicisms in the New Testament, and suddenly I "heard the thought" (that's one very descriptive expression for this phenomenon), that if Jesus really was who I thought he was, no way would I or anyone have to learn Aramaic, or Coptic, or some other dead language, in order to be able to understand him. Obviously he could speak to me in my own language right then and there. The thought itself of course attested to the truth of the statement. That sort of completeness within itself gave it a finality, where you don't doubt what the source is, you just know. Of course later I was to find A Course in Miracles, where he certainly speaks quite at length in contemporary language. Just to be sure, through Gary and his teacher Pursah, we also now have a very good contemporary version of the Thomas Gospel.

P.S. The title of this blog was chosen with the unforgettable song from the J. Geils Band "It Ain't What You Do (It's How You Do It). I could not find it on YouTube, otherwise I would have included a link to it here.